Rice Noodles

Rice noodles are an age-old Chinese food. They are long sticks with round cross-section made from ground powder of glutinous rice and fine flour. Rice noodles are white and shiny and as thin as silk threads. The noodles are ready after being boiled for a short while in water. Before they are served, the noodles are put in a bowl of broth, with chopped spring onions, soy sauce, salt, SMG, pepper oil and meat paste. Rice noodles can be eaten either hot or cold. Rice noodles are also called “messy noodles”, because in the process of boiling, they look like a mass of tangled threads. 

Rice noodles have a long history in China. Way back in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, rice noodles were featured in the cookbook Shi Ci (literally “food and drink”). In the Song Dynasty, rice noodles were also called “rice cables”, which could be dried and made good gifts to others. The dried rice noodles were shaped like a bird’s nest, pretty much the same as present-day dried rice noodles produced in Kunming.

Rice noodles are popular across China, with the most famous delicacy been Yunnan rice noodles. People in Yunnan tried everything possible to diverse the ways rice noodles are eaten. In terms of cooking ways, the noodles can be cooled, heated, stewed in soy sauce and fried. And the ingredients to go with rice noodles are too many to count. For big-pot rice noodles alone, there are braised pork, minced meat, three fresh ingredients, chitterlings, fried bean sauce, eels and jellied bean curd etc.  

In the east of Yunnan, there are the famous Yuxi small-pot rice noodles; in the south of Yunnan, there are Bridge-Crossing Rice Noodles; in the west of Yunnan, there are cool rice noodles and guoshou (eaten on your palm) rice noodles etc.